Sometimes when I turn on my cpu and monitor buttons, the monitor will not come on, but will only show an orange led, instead of green. I have noticed that the cpu unit sounds a little different too in its boot up procedure. No strange beeps, but it doesn't seem like it's going through its boot procedure, judging from the lack of activity from the led light on it. This makes me think that it's not my monitor, but somehow that my computer is not properly booting. It is not my OS, because it's done this for quite some time, even when I ran windows 3.11. While the problem can usually be fixed by turning off both monitor and cpu, waiting a few seconds, and turning them back on again, I was just curious about what is causing this to happen. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Your description of problem is very similar to one of my computers and monitor connected to it. Whenever I turn both on together using power switch on surge suppressor, the computer refuses to boot! I've concluded it's likely how the surge suppressor and computer power supply handle the initial current draw at startup. I've since put the monitor and computer on separate surge suppressors and I also turn on the monitor first, then wait about 10 or 15 seconds before cold booting the computer. Since implementing this procedure, I've had no boot-up goof ups! Try and see if this helps!

Thanks disc surfer, I will try this and tell you how it works for me. Gotta get an extra surge protector first, though.

If you have the atx case you will have to turn the cpu on with the button on the front of the case. The monitor waits for a signal from the cpu before it activates. This is why you see a yellow light on the monitor. On my system I use a surge protector to turn everything off/on. When I turn the surge protector on, the monitor comes on with a test signal and if I don't press the cpu button it will start to flash an orange light on the front of the monitor. When I press the button on the cpu the cpu will start up and in a few seconds you can hear the relays switch in the monitor and then it comes on. In the power management under control panel set everything to never and the first item to home/office desk.